Making Behavior Change

Have you ever noticed that behavior change is easy or hard? Fast or slow? Complicated or extremely easy? Behavior change has been the subject of research, articles, books and discussion for years. You could argue that behavior change may be the most basic element of what we as counselors are looking for when we work with patients who have addiction issues.

My experience tells me there are
several criteria to successful behavior changes. First, there has to be a desire to
change.Second, there has to be a
substitute for the problem activity.Third, a system of accountability ensures lasting change. While it is fairly easy to find an accountability
system, it’s even easier to find a substitute activity.The really difficult part of this equation is
to develop the desire to change.How can you develop the desire
for change to occur?There are two types
of motivation.One is a “towards”
motivation.Examples of a toward goal is
regaining health or reconnecting in lost relationships. The second type of motivation is “away from”
motivation.Examples of away from goals
are losing employment or losing my residence.The best type of goal builds in
both towards and away from motivators.Another method of building
motivation is to increase the discomfort with the present situation.This is often what occurs when an
Intervention occurs.Loved ones raise
the awareness of the negative aspects of the situation and outline clearly what
the boundaries are for the future.Often
this involves a withdrawal of support or a suspension of relationship which
creates a new level of discomfort and urgency for change to occur. While I am speaking to work with addictions,
these techniques can be very useful for any type of behavioral change.If you have struggled with a particular behavior,
identify the towards and away from motivations.You can create a motivator to “turn up the volume” in one direction or another.You can do this with yourself, but embedding
a system of accountability into it is helpful.For instance, a friend and I are training to run a 5k race.We agreed that every day we are supposed to
train and we don’t, we will pay the other person $1. I don’t want to pay her $1, but I really don’t
want to have to tell her I didn’t follow through. You can see that even if we aren’t
very good at our routine, we won’t likely go broke!You can be sure though, that we eagerly
report to each other when we do our workout (and even when we don’t).There
is a towards motivation:being prepared
to run a 5k.There is an away from
motivation:paying the $1.There is a system of accountability:we report our success to each other.The replacement activity in this case is the
running which takes the place of other activities in our lives such as watching
TV or sleeping in.For a relevant slideshow about behavior change check this out: http://tinyurl.com/2f86dmd What ideas can you come up with for establishing behavior change? Have any questions or comments? Contact me at allison@allisonvelez.com